Concert promoter and restaurateur Wilson talks Austin cultural history in a colorful and informative interview on Rag Radio.
Eddie Wilson, left, with Rag Radio host Thorne Dreyer in the KOOP studios in Austin, Friday, July 11, 2014. Photos by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.
Legendary Austin concert promoter and restaurateur Eddie Wilson was our guest on Rag Radio, Friday, July 11, 2014. The discussion is infused with rich oral history — peppered with unique and often very funny anecdotes — about a special time in the cultural history of Austin and the nation.
Wilson, who was co-founder and owner of Austin’s iconic music venue, Armadillo World Headquarters (1970-1980), managed pioneering Austin psychedelic/country/blues group Shivas Headband, started the Raw Deal in 1976, and in 1981 bought Threadgill’s — where Janis Joplin got her start — from country singer Kenneth Threadgill. Wilson added Threadgill’s South in 1996 and has run the two restaurants/music venues ever since.
Listen to or download the podcast of our July 11, 2014, Rag Radio interview with Eddie Wilson, here:
Rag Radio is a weekly hour-long syndicated radio program produced and hosted by long-time alternative journalist and Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer. The show is produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas. It is broadcast live on KOOP every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CST) and streamed live on the web.
Eddie Wilson on Rag Radio.
Eddie Wilson started the Armadillo in an old National Guard Armory after another seminal Austin concert hall, the Vulcan Gas Company, closed shop. The Armadillo provided a showcase for blues, pschedelia, and the emerging progressive country movement and became one of the most influential music venues in the country, featuring concerts by major acts ranging from Willie Nelson and Bruce Springsteen, to Ray Charles and B.B. King, to Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia, and Commander Cody.
The hall helped birth and nurture Austin’s famed music scene and put it on the national map, while — with the help of artist Jim Franklin — giving the lowly armadillo its special claim to fame.
Rag Radio is hosted and produced by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer who was a founding editor of the original Rag, published in Austin from 1966-1977. Tracey Schulz is the show’s engineer and co-producer. And we are honored to have noted investigative journalist Ken Martin is our apprentice.
Rag Radio has aired more than 200 shows since September 2009, on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin, Texas. Rag Radio is broadcast live every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CDT) on KOOP — and streamed live on the web — and is rebroadcast and streamed on Sundays at 10 a.m. (EDT) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA. Rag Radio is also aired and streamed on KPFT-HD3 90.1 — Pacifica radio in Houston — on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. (CDT).
After broadcast, all Rag Radio shows are posted as podcasts at the Internet Archive.
Rag Radio is produced in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive Internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.
Please contact us at ragradio@koop.org.
Coming up on Rag Radio:
FRIDAY, August 8, 2014: Vietnam veteran Thomas Cleaver on the 50th Anniversary of the alleged Tonkin Gulf “incident.” Tom was on the staff of the admiral in charge of the two destroyers. (Rescheduled from August 1.)
FRIDAY, August 15, 2014: Progressive hip-hoppers, Riders Against the Storm, Austin Music Awards 2013 Band of the Year.
